A WIFE FOR GERARD

Ursula walked back through the darkening fields. She knew herself now to be safe, yet she hung as one trembling in the recoil from the flash across a sudden abyss. Supposing she had discovered that these horrible creatures held her in their power? Would she have flung herself down into degradation unspeakable? She hoped not; she trusted not. Yet the oppression of wrong-doing was upon her, the fatal closing of successive links, the terror of the “might have been.”

Then every other reflection died away, and one thought only spread large in falling shadows across the clear blue sky.

How greatly had she wronged Gerard through all the silent years! It was but a single point—this question of Adeline’s ruin; it was “no business of Ursula’s”—oh, pure sisters of the impure!—yet how deeply had it influenced her womanly heart in all her thoughts of him! She could understand, in her own pride, his haughty shrinking from self-assertion before the bar of her complacency. How many err as he! How few make good their error! She saw things more calmly now than in that ignorant girlhood which seemed to lie so far behind her. Her thoughts dwelt sweetly on the companion of her childhood; his happy, noisy youth, his early manhood, now so steadfast in its slow endurance. And her strong eyes grew dim beneath the dying day.

On the steps of the Manor-house a gay party were assembled, laughing and talking, in a bouquet of bright dresses. Helena van Troyen ran forward to meet her.

“We have been waiting to see you,” she cried. “I have brought Toddlums—the baby—and also some one I knew would interest you all—Gerard’s Colonel from Acheen.”

“How delighted mamma will have been!” said Ursula, a little hypocritically, as she advanced to be introduced to a tall gentleman, all brick-dust and mustache.

“Colonel Vuurmont’s descriptions of Gerard’s bravery are too charmingly thrilling,” said Helena. “Dear Gerard! And so romantic! Tell Mevrouw van Helmont, Colonel, about that bit of brown glove.”

“Mevrouw, Mevrouw, that is a kind of a sort of a secret,” expostulated the Colonel, looking slightly bored.

“A secret! when half a dozen men saw it produced, and all Kotta Radja knew and teased him about it afterwards! Nonsense! Ursula, you must know that when Gerard was so terribly wounded—terribly wounded, it appears, and in four different places—they found an old brown kid glove on his breast. Isn’t that delicious? I had hoped the glove was mine, but Gerard says it wasn’t. There, nurse has let Toddlums upset herself again. Come, Ursula; I can’t bear to hear the child scream like that.”

The two men remained on the steps. “You must know, Van Troyen,” said the Colonel, “that Helmont maintains there is no love-story connected with that glove at all; only it would be a pity to spoil your wife’s amusement. He says that the glove saved his life in a duel, through his adversary slipping on it, and that he wore it as a kind of talisman.”

“I certainly remember about a duel,” replied Willie, “with a foreign officer, who had said, I believe, that Dutch soldiers were wanting in courage.”

“Helmont was just the right man to say that to,” remarked the Colonel, quietly.

“Ursula, I have got a wife for Gerard at last,” said Helena, fondling her baby. “On the whole, I think, she is suitable, though it has cost me a lot of trouble to admit it. But I am growing old, and have a baby, and one learns to see things differently. I have talked to him about it all, and I think he understands.”

“Really!” replied Ursula, much interested in Toddlums.

“But men are so contrary! He pretends that he is going to live in the Hague with his mother, and never marry. Gerard never marry! ‘Ah, quel dommage d’un si bel homme!’ I have explained all about it to aunt. She is rather exacting, but, on the whole, I believe she agrees with me.”

“Has this young lady means of her own?” asked Ursula.

“Fie! what a question! The very last I should have expected from you! Yes, the lady has means of her own. She has recently come into a fortune. They will be able to live in some style, as the Baron and Baroness van Helmont should.”

“And you think Gerard consents?”

“Oh yes, I feel sure he will. To begin with, he says he won’t, which is always a very good sign. And then there are others. I suppose you have no idea who the lady is?”

Helena looked up sharply, with petulant good-will, into Ursula’s grave face.

“I? No; how should I tell? Do I know her?”

“Oh yes, better than I ever did. But, really, we must be going; we have missed our train as it is. I was so anxious to tell you about this coming marriage of Gerard’s, and to express my admiration of your bravery last week, that, for the first time since her birth, I have neglected Toddlums. Colonel Vuurmont admires you awfully, Ursula. He says he wishes he had had you out in Acheen.”

“He had Gerard,” replied Ursula, simply.

That evening the young Baroness’s “family circle” gathered, as usual, round the shaded lamp. Ursula tried hard to bestow due attention on Tante Louisa’s prattle; the Dowager had sunk to sleep over a bundle of letters which she had been laboriously sorting, first according to their writers, and then, all over again, according to their dates.

The month’s Victory lay spread out before Tante Louisa, who was holding forth in Batavo-Carlylese.

“Napoleon was the world’s ruler by right of power,” said Louisa. “Kings are they who can rule. An hereditary king is a puppet.”

“But the other day you sang the praises of heredity,” suggested Ursula, politely.

“Did I? Well, that also was consistent. We praise things for the good in them; we blame for the bad. There is nothing so consistent as inconsistency.”

A tap at the terrace-window awoke the Dowager. The DominÉ stood outside with Josine. Ursula started up in delight, for her father’s visits were of the rarest.

The Freule immediately took possession of the pastor, while Josine considerately settled down by the Dowager to tell her of recent successes gained by Sympathetico in arresting mental decline.

“I disagree utterly,” broke out the DominÉ, as soon as he had heard a few words of Louisa’s jargon. “The world is not ruled by human strength, forsooth! but by the power of God. In big things and little, it is we who make trouble by not marching straight. If only we would do the moment’s duty, leaving the responsibility to the Commander-in chief! To do a great right, do a little wrong!” exclaimed the DominÉ, spluttering in his energy. “It is the worst lie ever invented! It is the curse of a little evil conscientiously done that wrong must breed wrong forever. Satan himself is nearer than a Jesuit to the kingdom of God!”

Suddenly Ursula looked up from her work. “Is that not putting it rather strongly, papa?” she said.

“It is the simplest of Christ’s teachings,” cried the excited DominÉ. “It is the deepest conviction of my heart. Never was good got out of a false start! To deny that is the confusion of all distinctions—the death of all discipline. Ursula, would you make of the Lord’s army a company of free-shooters? Right is right; wrong is wrong; shout it out upon the house-tops! If you don’t know, for the moment, what is right, ask God to help you. When you know, do it. That is all philosophy and all religion. Sufficient for the day is the duty thereof!”

He had got up, pacing the room with rapid stride, and waving his empty sleeve.

“I’m excited, ladies,” he said, wiping his forehead. “This afternoon I heard the dying confession of a man who has ruined his whole life and his brother’s by a generous lie told in his youth. It is not to remain a secret; I will tell the story to you some day. Well, Mevrouw, that is a pretty child of Helena van Troyen’s!”

“Captain, listen.” Ursula followed her father out on to the terrace after he had taken leave. “Do you really mean it all?”

He did not ask what she alluded to, but answered straight: “From the bottom of my heart. You know I mean it. Remember our talk about Gerard. And you, too, mean it. Did you not go down last week, like a soldier’s daughter, to face the mob!”

“Papa—” began Ursula.

“Why are the Helmonts going away?” asked Josine’s voice behind her. “I shall miss Theodore’s mother very much. She is a good, plain, sensible body, and not above taking judicious advice.”

“Going away? How do you mean?” asked Ursula.

“Yes, going away. Don’t you know? How odd! She told me that Theodore had come in this afternoon, after having met the Van Troyens, and had said in his disagreeable way (though she didn’t call it that, but I think him very disagreeable), ‘Mother, our work here is done; we are going back to Bois-le-Duc.’ She couldn’t get anything more out of him. He went away and banged the door. So selfish.”

“Josine!” called the DominÉ on ahead.

“Coming! coming, Roderigue. How odd, Ursula, that you didn’t know that!”

Ursula stood looking after her father’s vanished figure. “To-morrow I shall tell him,” she said.